The following was published in the Times
Daily, Thursday, February 25, 1999.
It is presented here with the permission of the Times Daily, and the permission
of the author, Harry E. Wallace.

White Migration & Settlement

During the last decade of the 17th century, English
colonists in America were pushing westward from the Atlantic coast over the
Appalachian Mountains. At the same time, French trappers were advancing down the
Mississippi River and eastward toward the Appalachians. At stake were millions
of acres of land and a profitable trade with the eastern tribes.
In 1673, Abraham Wood, an English trader from Fort Henry on the Appomattox
River of Virginia, sent out an expedition over the mountains to trade with the
Cherokees. The expedition was headed by James Needham, accompanied by Indian
guides and an illiterate youth named Gabriel Arthur.
Needham was murdered by one of the Indian guides and Arthur was taken as a
captive among the Cherokees for about one year.
Arthur made several trips with the Cherokee in search of furs down the
Tennessee and is believed to be the first Englishman to see the Shoals.
Sometime around 1692, Jean Couture, a renegade French trapper ascended the
length of the Tennessee on his way to Charles Towne (Charleston). Couture
offered his services to the English, who used his route into the Tennessee
Valley as a principle trade route to the west.
By 1700, Carolina traders were traveling the Tennessee Valley to the
Mississippi and courting friendships with the Cherokee, Chickasaw and other
tribes to counter a possible alliance between the French and Creeks.

Cherokee expeditions

Two Carolina traders, Thomas Nairne and Price Hughes, proposed to organize
the Cherokees into expeditions, led by chosen traders, which would attack and
harass the French and perhaps persuade coastal tribes to become loyal to
England.
By 1707, Nairne visualized the establishment of trading posts along the
Tennessee River, through which the Indian fur trade might be diverted from the
French posts.
An Indian uprising in 1715 temporarily wrecked Nairne's plans. During this
war, Nairne was captured and killed. Price Hughes, Nairne's partner, tried to
continue the dream with one slight variation, establish permanent English
settlements along the Tennessee. His plan was one of the first schemes for
British colonization west of the Appalachians.
Like Nairne, Hughes' dreams were short lived: he was killed by the Indians as
well. The death of both Nairne and Hughes and continued Indian and French
problems west of the Appalachians delayed settlement on the Tennessee.
From 1715 to 1763, both the French and Carolina traders continued trade
throughout the Tennessee Valley.
In 1763, the French, having lost the French and Indian War, exited North
America. Spain had acquired Louisiana and England's America stretched from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi River.
Rivalry for trade and alliances with the southern tribes would continue
between the Spanish and English.
The movement of English settlers was mainly westward over the mountains
through Kentucky and western North Carolina (presently east Tennessee).
South and southwestward movements along the Tennessee mainly were checked by
the Chickamauga Cherokees.

Donelson Expedition

One successful movement of settlers west was the famed Donelson Expedition of
1779-1780. Capt. James Robertson and Capt. John Donelson, both of Virginia, and
more recently from the Wautauga Valley in extreme western North Carolina,
planned to relocate to the French Lick on the bluffs of the Cumberland River,
the site of present-day Nashville.
Robertson had journeyed there in 1779 and built cabins, cleared fields,
planted crops and left men to guard the outpost.
The second expedition was to be both by land and by river.
Robertson left overland in November 1779, and in December, Donelson, with the
families, launched an armada of some 30 vessels and journeyed down the
Tennessee.
Donelson's fleet included his flatboat "The Adventure," which
contained about 30 people including his 15-year-old daughter, Rachel, future
wife of Andrew Jackson.
At Lookout Mountain, Donelson lost one boat of 28 souls to the Chickamauga
Cherokees. The boat was in the rear because they were quarantined with smallpox.
Another boat with five people was lost at the famed "sucks" below the
present-day city of Chattanooga. The remaining vessels arrived at the shoals
area on March 12, 1780. They ran the shoals in about three hours and camped for
the night below the shoals on the north side of the river. These may have been
the first American families to use McFarland Bottoms as a campground.
After four months and more than one thousand miles, the expedition arrived at
the Cumberland settlement on April 24, 1780. Southern historians have equated
this journey into the western frontier with that of the Pilgrims' journey to New
England. Local historian William McDonald, who has spoken and written
extensively on this subject, has stated that families who were to become
prominent in Tennessee were on this expedition and that they would form the
basis for a very influential western aristocracy.

Region's riches recognized

During the 1780s men fro Georgia and the Carolinas learned of the value of
the Shoals region and tried several times to gain control of it. One attempt
occurred in 1784 when John Donelson and John Sevier helped form a company, known
as the Mussel Shoals Speculation, to exploit the riches of the Tennessee Valley
around the shoals.
Donald Davidson, in Volume 1 of his work "The Tennessee," stated
that Donelson and Sevier arranged to purchase the land from the Indians but that
they may have mistakenly negotiated with Chickamauga Cherokee renegades.
Davidson said both the Cherokees and Chickasaws protested the bogus purchase.
Further action by the company was delayed by the death of John Donelson and
political problems resulting from an attempt to establish a state named
Franklin. The state of Georgia went so far as to name the area north of the
Tennessee River Houston County, Ga.
John Sevier of the Wautauga settlement in western North Carolina played an
important role in the attempt to create the state of Franklin from lands ceded
to the American government by the state of North Carolina.
At a convention in Jonesboro in December 1784, the state of Franklin was
born.
Sevier was elected the governor of Franklin and inexact boundaries were drawn
to include the north side of the Tennessee as their southern border.
The Franklin appeal to Congress for recognition failed.
The last hopes of Franklin residents faded when the constitution was adopted
in 187 with no provision for a state named Franklin.
In 1795, Tennessee became the 16th state without a boundary to the Tennessee
River.
In 1794, the Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee were destroyed and the river
was opened as an artery of travel west. But at the turn of the century there was
still no permanent settlement at the Shoals.
By this time the advantages of the shoals were well known and whites already
were living here.
Most of these white settlers were tenants on the reservation of Chief
Doublehead.

Natchez Trace opens

In 1803, the Natchez Trace was opened as a government post road and more
whites poured onto Indian lands.
From 1805 to 1816, there would be a series of Indian land cessions involving
land along the Tennessee River.
In 1810, the Chickasaws complained that from 4,000 to 5,000 intruders had
illegally invaded their territory.
The government response was to construct Fort Hampton at the mouth of Elk
River and send Col. Return Meigs with troops to evict squatters on Indian land.
By 1811 there may have been as many as 15,000 intruders and Indians were
threatening open war.
To prevent bloodshed, the government ordered all whites evicted, including
those still living on lands previously owned by Doublehead.
In 1816, Isaac Barker, a government gent, reported 200 to 300 families living
around the Shoals.
Also in 1816, the Chickasaws ceded lands north of the Tennessee River to the
government and received three reservations in favor of George Colbert, Oppossum
Tubby and John McCleish.
The government would later purchase these reserves.
In 1817, the Cherokees ceded Doublehead's reservation to the United States.
With these land acquisitions, the area north of the river was open for white
settlement.
In February 1818, the Alabama territory government created 13 counties that
included the following: Blount, Cahaba (now Bibb), Connecuh, Dallas, Franklin
(now Colbert and Franklin), Cotaco (now Morgan), Lauderdale, Lawrence,
Limestone, Marion, Marengo, Shelby and Tuscaloosa.
The migration boom continued to be fueled by high cotton prices and the
availability of cheap, fertile land.

Immediately after the War of 1812, America began a
period of national pride, economic opportunity and westward movement. One
reflection of this period was inflated land prices and easy credit.
Dr. Mary Jane McDaniel of the University of North Alabama has written that
the majority of the land was sold for agricultural purposes but some of the most
feverish activity was in developing prospective town sites. Some of the greatest
activity was in the shoals area because it was as far as boats could travel
upriver.
At least nine towns wee planned for the immediate area. They included Triana
in Madison County, Marathon in Limestone, Cotton Port in Lawrence, Florence and
Waterloo in Lauderdale, Bainbridge, York's Bluff, South Port, and Tuscumbia in
Franklin.

Lauderdale County Born

Lauderdale County had been one of the original 13 counties created by the
Territorial Legislature in February 1818. The namesake for Lauderdale was col.
James Lauderdale of Sumner county, Tenn. Lauderdale served in Gen. Andrew
Jackson's Army directly under Gen. John Coffee was wounded at the battle of
Talladega and died as a result of his wounds on Dec.23, 1814.
Within a month after the county was created, March 12, 1818, a land company
was formed in Huntsville in the Federal Land Office of John Coffee, surveyor
general of the north Alabama District. The Cypress Land Company was a merger of
two competing companies, the Tennessee Land Company and the Alabama Company.
This merger eliminated some of the competition and allowed them to pool
resources. The Articles of Association appointed seven trustees: Leroy Pope,
Thomas Bibb and John McKinley of the Alabama Company and John Coffee, James
Jackson, John Childress and Dabney Morris of the Tennessee Land Company.
The Cypress Land Company purchased 5,515.77 acres from the United States for
$85,235.24, for an average of $15.50 per acre.
The Federal Land Act of 1800 required one-fourth of the purchase price to be
paid as a down payment and the remainder paid within three years. To raise the
necessary down payment of $21,308.81 the trustees of the Cypress Land Company
chose to sell 408 shares of stock at $52.23 per share.
In the summer of 1818, Coffee supervised the surveying of the town site of
Florence. Assisting Coffee were Ferdinand Sannoner, James Weakley and Hunter
Peale. Blocks in town were laid out in squares of almost two acres and divided
into four equal lots.
Months before the first land sale, the trustees began a newspaper advertising
campaign.
Potential buyers were assured of a tremendous opportunity to invest in a town
that was to become one of the largest commercial cities in the Southwest.
The advertisements touted excellent land, abundant timber, the existence of
raw materials such as iron and stone coal, and a mild climate.
Future transportation was promised in the form of steamboats as well as
Jackson's Military Road to connect Nashville and New Orleans. The company
further advertised that Jackson had proposed to the War Department that a
military armory supply depot and cannon factory be constructed locally.

Military Road built

Congress authorized the Military Road in
April 1816 with surveying and
right-of-way purchases completed by March 1817. Actual construction began June
1, 1817 and was completed in May 1820.
The completed road offered faster service for military and mail delivery from
Nashville to New Orleans.
The town site was advertised as being on an elevated plain at least 100 feet
above the river and bound by cypress Creek on the west and Sweetwater Creek on
the east. The advertisement further stated that the town had five main streets;
Court, Tennessee, Pine, Market (Wood) and Seminary. These main streets were to
be 115 feet wide with all other streets 99 feet wide.
Squares were reserved for a college, open-air farmers market, female
seminary, a public walk and a courthouse. A lot also was set aside for a jail
and two acres were reserved for a public cemetery.
Prospective buyers were promised liberal credit terms; one-fourth was to be
paid down with the remainder in equal installments over three years.

Florence land sale begins

The first public sale began July 22, 1818, and lasted four days. Coffee and
two clerks, Sannoner and Weakley, from the Huntsville Federal Land Office were
present to handle the paperwork.
McDaniel has written that the trustees announced they would build "a
large and commodious tavern," a courthouse, and a jail. She stated this was
obviously done to inflate the value of lots and seek to ensure that the town
would become the county seat.
The scheme obviously worked. According to the Alabama Republican of July 25,
1818, the first 52 lots sold for more than $18,000.
A few individual lots brought $3,000, some $3,500, but the ferry lot on the
river was purchased by J. J. Winston for $10,000. In all, the four-day sale
grossed the company nearly $225,000. Most business was on credit and the company
offered a 35 percent discount to encourage business construction.
At this point the future looked very bright for the Cypress Land Company and
the trustees. But hard times hit in the form of the Panic of 1819. Since most
purchases of land had been by credit, it became nearly impossible to collect
debts. Trustee John McKinley estimated that there was $24,000 in bad debts from
the sale.
To help provide relief during the depression, Congress passed the Land Act of
1820 that reduced the amount of land that could be purchased from 160 to 80
acres and lowered the price from $2 to $1.24 per acre. It also abolished the
system of purchasing public land on credit.
Further, in 1821, Congress passed a series of relief Acts that said
purchasers of public lands were entitled to a discount of 37.5 percent and a
four-year debt extension for cash settlements.
Purchasers of town-site lots were entitled to a 20 percent discount and a
four-year debt extension. Another provision of the acts allowed that companies
could return part of their original purchase and apply the original down payment
to the remainder of their land.

Relief Acts end panic

Turner Rice, in his article on the Cypress Land Company, stated that the
company decided to take advantage of the Land Relief Acts and returned a portion
of their original acreage and received debt reduction of 37 percent. In return,
the Cypress Land Company was required to reduce the debts of purchasers of town
lots by 20 percent.
Also in 1821, General Coffee moved the Federal Land Office from Huntsville to
Florence and the first steamboat, Osage, arrived at Florence. In addition, the
renowned traveler Anne Royall visited Florence and described a boomtown. By all
appearances, the panic was over.
According to the Articles of Association of the Cypress Land Company, the
trustees were to hold a final land sale within five years.
After it was widely publicized, the 1823 sale attracted a small crowd and
sold $58,000 in lots. By the end of 1823, a total of $324,000 in lots had been
sold.
At this second sale, the trustees sold the tavern known as the Florence Hotel
to James Jackson's brother John. Also sold were lots for the jail, college and
female seminary. Not sold were the blocks listed as the public walk, what is now
Wilson Park, and the cemetery.

Company settles debts

After the Panic of 1819 the Cypress Land Company trustees were interested in
settling the debts of the company. Each share of stock was to be valued at $475.
Robert Weakley, who kept the company books, stated that the majority of the
payments of debts were in stock rather than cash. Eventually, 392 shares worth
$186,000 were deposited by the end of 1827. McKinley turned in 71 shares and
James Jackson deposited 47 shares.
Tragedy struck in 1827 in the form of a devastating fire that destroyed most
company records. James Jackson kept a personal copy of many records but others
were reconstructed from memory.
The company survived but was not ready to liquidate its assets.
Another setback to the company came on July 7, 1833 when Coffee died. By all
accounts, he was the heart and soul of the company.
Florence lawyer James B. Irvine was hired as an agent of the company to
proved legal assistance. On Aug. 17, 1840, James Jackson died, leaving McKinley
as the only trustee living in Florence.
By 1841, all but 16 shares of the original 408 shares of stock has been
returned. McKinley asked for an accounting and Irvine reported that he had
obtained three additional shares but needed payment of $1,000 per share.
In 1825 the company had upped the price from $475 to
$500 and McKinley was
unwilling to authorize further payment.
In the name of the Cypress Land company a lawsuit was filed against Irvine,
who in turn sued the company, McKinley, Leroy Pope and the estates of Coffee and
Jackson.
After a long and painful legal process, the case was heard by the Alabama
Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the company. This was the final event
that led to the liquidation of the Cypress Land Company.
The dreams of the Cypress Land Company to build a large commercial center on
the southwestern frontier never materialized, but the company was more
successful than most.
The town of Florence was founded and a share of stock originally worth $52.23
was eventually worth $500.

McKinley largest stockholder

Some of the most interesting people who helped contribute to the early years
of Florence were three of the trustees of the Cypress Land Company and the civil
engineer who helped design the city.
John McKinley moved to Huntsville in 1818 and became a very successful lawyer
and land speculator. He was the largest stockholder in the Cypress Land Company
from the beginning of the venture.
McKinley was elected to the state Legislature in 1820 and moved to Florence
in 1821, where he built a large home overlooking the river on the corner of
Spring (now Veterans) and Seminary.
In 1826 McKinley was elected to the U. S. Senate as a Jacksonian Democrat and
while in the Senate, he was interested in the federal land laws and the
construction of a canal over the area's river shoals.
Defeated in 1830, McKinley returned to the Alabama Legislature where he led
the fight in Alabama against the National Bank. Elected to the U. W. Senate
again in 1837, McKinley did not serve because he became Alabama's first justice
on the U. s. Supreme Court.
Just before President Jackson left office in 1837, William Smith of Alabama
was appointed to the high court. When Smith declined, Jackson's successor,
Martin Van Buren, appointed McKinley.
In those days, the Supreme Court justices rode circuits, where they heard
federal cases. Dr. Robert J. Norrell of the University of Alabama has written
that McKinley's circuit covered the frontiers of Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama.
On the court, McKinley became an ardent supporter of states' rights and an
opponent of the National Bank. Around 1840, McKinley moved to Louisville, Ky.,
where he died in 1852, while still serving on the Supreme Court.

Irish immigrant prospers

James Jackson was born in Ireland, educated as a civil engineer and came to
America in 1799.
In 1800, he moved to the frontier of Tennessee and settled in Nashville. In
1804, he opened Jackson's General Merchandise and was on his way to becoming a
respected and prominent businessman.
In 1810 he married the beautiful widow, Sarah "Sally" Moore
McCulloch of the Carolina Moores. Sarah's great-grandfather, James Moore, was a
royal governor of Carolina. Her grandfather, Roger, commonly known as "King
Roger" founded the famous Orton Plantation on the Cape Fear River near
Wilmington.
Sarah's first husband, Samuel McCulloch drowned while on a land-buying trip.
Jackson and his bride prospered in Nashville, raising four of their nine
children there.
James Jackson moved his family to Lauderdale County in 1821 when his large,
Greek temple-style home, the Forks of Cypress, was completed.
From 1822 he was active in state politics and eventually served in both
houses of the Alabama Legislature. In 1839, Jackson was named president of the
state Senate.
Once a political adviser to Andrew Jackson, James Jackson and the future
president split over personal business and James Jackson became a leader in the
Whig Party in Alabama.
James Jackson was renowned as a sportsman and breeder of thoroughbred horses.
The horses from the Forks of Cypress are nationally recognized as bloodstock for
the famous Kentucky thoroughbreds.
When Jackson died in 1840 at the age of 58, he was regarded as the richest
man in Alabama.

Coffee succeeds in Florence

John Coffee was the driving force behind the Cypress Land company. Born in
Virginia, raised in North Carolina, and moving to Nashville in 1798, Coffee
became close to the Overtons, Donelsons and Jacksons.
After a failed business venture in 1807, partially because of a depression,
Coffee became a successful land surveyor.
In 1809 he married Mary Donelson, niece of Rachel Donelson Jackson.
During the War of 1812, Coffee served as Andrew Jackson's cavalry commander
in the campaigns against the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend and later against
the British at New Orleans. For his service, Coffee was appointed surveyor
general of the North Alabama district in 1817. One of his first jobs was to
establish the land office and survey the town of Huntsville.
After the forming of the Cypress Land company in March 1818, Coffee and his
crew began to survey the site for the town of Florence.
For himself, Coffee purchased 1,280 acres on Cox Creek north of Florence and
established his plantation, called Hickory Hill.
Knows as one of the most prominent citizens of Florence, Coffee helped
establish churches, schools, gins, mills and other commercial enterprises.
After returning from a visit with President Andrew Jackson I Washington,
Coffee became ill and died on July 6, 1833.
President Jackson wrote his epitaph: "As a husband, parent and friend he
was affectionate, tender and sincere. He was a brave, prompt and skillful
general, a disinterested and sagacious patriot and unpretending, just and honest
man."

Italian engineer leaves mark

Another colorful personality in the early history of Florence was Italian
surveyor Ferdinand Sannoner. Local historian Oscar D. Lewis stated that Sannoner
was born in Italy and highly educated, becoming an engineer by age 18. In 1816,
at age 23, Sannoner came to America to help survey the frontier.
After settling in New York for a short period, Sannoner was sent to Gen.
Coffee in Huntsville. When the Cypress Land Company purchased land for a city at
the shoals, Coffee personally supervised the surveying but entrusted the design
of the town to Sannoner.
Legend has it that the trustees of the company gave the honor of naming the
city to Sannoner, who named Florence after his favorite Italian city. Sannoner
moved his family to Florence in 1824 when the Federal Land Office was moved to
Tennessee Street.
Sannoner operated a bakery-delicatessen on Tennessee Street in partnership
with his brother and served as county clerk for a period. Sometime in the 1850s
Sannoner moved to Memphis and died there in 1857 at age 66. He was survived by
his wife, five sons and one daughter.

Early towns Flourish

Jill Knight Garrett in her history of Lauderdale County mentioned a vast
number of other towns and communities founded in Lauderdale. Some of the
earliest include Anderson, Gravelly springs, Green Hill, Lexington, Rogersville,
Smithsonia and Waterloo.
Anderson was founded around a mill owned by the Anderson family. An early
iron foundry making agricultural implements also existed in the community. The
Ingram family also became prominent in the area.
Gravelly Springs was a stage stop on the original Natchez Trace and the road
from Waterloo to Florence. The David Houston plantation Wildwood was located
near the springs. The springs also saw the formation of Wilson's large Union
cavalry in late 1864 and early 1865 with the Cannon home serving as Wilson's
headquarters.
Green Hill and the surrounding community near Cowpen Creek were the sites of
two important mills and factories in the antebellum period.
The Kennedy family members were famous gunsmiths and operated the Kennedy Gun
Works manufacturing the famed Pennsylvania-Kentucky long rifles.
One original Kennedy gun now hangs in Pope's Tavern Museum in Florence.

Cloverdale Called Rawhide

Rawhide, later renamed Cloverdale, served as an early leather-tanning center,
earning a tough name and reputation. One early settler was Jonathan Paulk, who
owned and operated a tannery on Cypress Creek. After the 1890s the community was
settled by a small contingent of Finns, earning the name "Little
Finland."
Rogersville was settled about 1820 by the Rogers family and served as a stage
stop on the Huntsville-to-Florence road. The Lamb family operated a ferry
crossing on the river near Rogersville.
Smithsonia is in the Bend of the River and was first the site of a ferry
operated by Christopher Cheatham. Named for Columbus Smith, Smithsonia served as
a steamboat landing and a gin site.

Waterloo Incorporated

Waterloo was founded around 1819 and is one of the oldest incorporated towns
in Alabama, incorporated Dec. 13, 1832. According to Eva Dendy, local historian
and beloved Waterloo teacher, Waterloo was a major port on the north side of the
Tennessee.
Waterloo was founded by a joint-stock company that included Tyree Rodes,
Macmillian Buchanan, German Lester, John McCracken and Gabriel Bumpass.
The town's name is derived from Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Belgium in
1815.
During the Indian removal, knows as the Trail of Tears, Waterloo was a major
site for shipping American Indians west to the Oklahoma Territory. Dendy said
Waterloo was destroyed twice, once by a massive flood in 1847 and later by the
Tennessee Valley Authority in the early 1930s after the building of Pickwick
Dam.
Like Lauderdale, Franklin County was created by the Alabama Territorial
government in February 1818. The first county seat was Old Russellville,
incorporated Nov. 27, 1819, and located on the crossing of the Gaines Trace and
Jackson's Military Road. A new election was held in 1849 and the county seat was
changed to a new, undeveloped, town near the center of the county later known as
Frankfort. Frankfort would remain the county seat of Franklin County until 1879.
In the 1820s there were five major towns projected and surveyed: Ococoposa
(Coldwater), York's Bluff, South Port, Bainbridge and Marion.

Ococoposa has rocky start

The most important of these towns was Ococoposa, chartered by the territorial
government on March 3, 1817 but not incorporated until Dec. 20, 1820.
The first known white settler was Michael Dickson, who arrived sometime in
1815 with his wife and family. Legend says that Dickson purchased a large tract
of land from Chickasaw chief Tashka Ambi (Tuscumbia). However, the 1816 treaty
with the Chickasaws nullified the deal. As compensation, the government gave
Dickson a choice of several surveyed lots.
In 1817, Dickson was joined by four brothers-in-law: Isaiah Dill, James
McMann, Hugh Finley and Matthews. Randall Johnson arrived in May 1817 and
recorded in his diary that the town had three houses and one store.
In May 1817, the southern section of the Military Road was constructed
through Coldwater. By the time the road was finished in May 1820, thousands of
settlers were flooding into Alabama.
The first public land sale in Ococoposa was conducted in 1820and the town was
incorporated as Ococoposa. Chickasaw for Cold Water Springs.
Colbert historian John McWilliams stated that surveyor John Coffee had
requested the name Cold Water Springs but the citizens preferred Big Spring. He
said that once the town was legally incorporated, the name could be changed, so
on June 14, 1821, the name was changed to Big Spring and changed again on Dec.
3, 1822 to Tuscumbia.
According to McWilliams, John coffee and the trustees of the Cypress Land
Company conspired to prevent Tuscumbia from challenging the commercial
prominence of Florence by designing Tuscumbia with a commons.
Boston and Allegheny, Pa., are the only other cities with such commons.
The commons completely encircle the town and were to be used for public good
and not for commercial purposes. Since that time, all laws concerning the use of
the Commons have been legally repealed.

Tuscumbia On The Move

The era of the 1820s represented rapid economic and social growth for
Tuscumbia. Michael Dickson built the first stage stop and hotel on he hill
overlooking the big Spring.
One of the cabins has been rescued and moved across the road from its
original site.
By 1824 there were four hotels in a town of less than 1,000 people. Such
accommodations were available because the Military road and stage routes
converged in Tuscumbia.
The southern mail arrived on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and departed
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The northern mail arrived Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Saturdays and departed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Tuscumbia was virtually cut off from the river. To rectify this, a steamboat
landing was constructed at the mouth of Spring Creek in 1824 to take advantage
of river traffic.
Steamers and keelboats would unload and the supplies were hauled by freight
wagons to and from the town.

York's Bluff becomes Sheffield

The town of York's Bluff never officially materialized despite two land sales
in 1820 and 1834.
No houses or commercial businesses were erected until the 1880s when the town
of Sheffield was founded.
South Port was unofficially established in 1813 when Joseph Heslip arrived.
In 1818, Heslip opened Alabama's first iron furnace south of Russellville. By
1820, South Port proudly displayed eight large warehouses on the river to
accommodate steamboat traffic.
People in Florence commonly referred to South Port as South Florence because
the Florence Ferry landed there.
From the 1830s to 1860, this community was a thriving cotton port but the
Civil War would virtually destroy South Port.
Bainbridge, across from the mouth of Shoal Creek, conducted its land sale on
Jan. 16, 1819. One reason this town thrived was because the first state-funded
highway passed through on its way to Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior River,
connecting the Black Warrior with the Cumberland River at Nashville via the
Military Road.
When Tuscaloosa became the state capital, the Byler Road became a toll rod.
Bainbridge eventually was abandoned because of the railroad.

Short-lived towns

The town of Marion was on the site of what would later become the TVA
chemical plant. The land sale was conducted on Feb. 26 and 27, 1819, but the
town never survived the Panic of 1819.
Another important town in Franklin County was first called Jeffer's
Crossroads but later was changed to Leighton after William Leigh, a Baptist
minister who arrived in 1817.
In 1820,an important event occurred when 15 wagons arrived from Wake County,
N. C., carrying prominent planters looking for new land. They were led by Henry
King and included John Rand, Edward B. Delony, Col. James Fennel, Thomas Lyle,
Drury Vinson, Elisha Madding and Richard Preuit.
In 1815 Abraham Ricks sold his plantation, Cotton Gardens in Lawrence County,
and built the Oaks in Franklin County.
Franklin County had examples of the three major types of towns: river towns,
road towns and railroad towns.